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The same organization that’s been bringing the must-see St. Black Pride takes place in August, extending Pride season throughout the summer. Louis Pride events became a summer standard, LGBT folks of color inaugurated a complimentary festival of their own. Doctors then didn’t know what ailed him, but Rayford’s saved tissues were later tested and evaluated, proving invaluable pieces of the medical puzzle.Īlmost twenty years after St. Louis teenager Robert Rayford often described as the first North American to die of the disease, in 1969.
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The city has a long history at the forefront of the fight, with St. They worked out of bars and church basements to cobble together care and information, finally gaining nonprofit status as the Saint Louis Effort for AIDS in 1985. Louis were scared of, uninformed about and dying of a terrible new illness. In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, a group of volunteers realized people in St. In 2000, it was renamed the Vital Voice, which continues publishing online today. In the early ‘80s, as the Lesbian and Gay News Telegraph, it was distributed all over the Midwest.
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The first Pride was galvanizing for the community, and in 1981 Jim Thomas and a crew of volunteers began publishing the Gay News Telegraph, an eight-page paper focused on news and advocacy. Magnolia Committee) focused solely on the April 20 march and rally in theĬentral West End and Washington University. After someĭuplicative efforts, one group (The Celebration Committee) organized eventsįrom April 12 to April 19 at locations around the city. To plan the region’s first official Pride-related activities. Louis from the March on Washington, a couple of groups independently began Louis’ first official Pride festivities in April 1980. Louisans’ participation in the groundbreaking National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in October 1979, would pave the way for St. Louis’ masquerading law would not be overturned until 1985.įrom April 20-22, 1979, Washington University hosted a Gay Pride Weekend that featured workshops, films, a dance and a faith-based service. For years, the Mandrake Society held an annual Halloween Ball to protest the 1969 arrests and advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights. A new local gay rights organization, the Mandrake Society, sprung into action to assist the men with their bail and subsequent court case, which was ultimately dismissed. Shortly after midnight the men were arrested for violating the city’s long-standing laws against “masquerading,” or appearing dressed as the opposite sex. Louis’s gay strip in the Midtown neighborhood, near Grand and Olive. On Halloween night in 1969, nine young men donned female attire and hit the bars on St. Lesbians played in bar-sponsored sports teams, and the East Side was the go-to for after-hours partying and drag performances. Gay men cruised local bath houses and parks. Louis LGBTQIA+ community was still mostly living in the shadows. The Gateway Arch was four years old, men were walking on the moon, and the St. The Stonewall Riots served as a catalyst for the LGBTQIA+ rights movement across the globe. The raid sparked a riot among bar patrons and neighborhood residents, leading to six days of violent clashes with law enforcement. In the late hours of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City.